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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
In any conclusive consideration of Henry Vaughan's work, how much weight should be given to the presence of Hermetic fragments? It has frequently been recognized that the truer mysticism of Henry Vaughan sets him somewhat apart from the so-called school of metaphysical poets, as something more than a disciple of Donne and Herbert. This note in Vaughan has led some students to examine more closely his contacts with that body of thought loosely labelled Hermetic philosophy, and its corollary, alchemical science. The suggestion has been given body by the presence of two or three pertinent facts: phrases and ideas in Vaughan which were common to the Hermetists; the fact that Vaughan translated at least one passage from a sixteenth-century Hermetical writer; and, chiefly, the fact that the poet's brother, Thomas Vaughan, was known to have been a dabbler in transcendental alchemy. This paper examines in further detail how far these facts enter into the total body of work of Henry Vaughan.
1 Hermetica. Edited by Walter Scott, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1924–26), i, 7.—The student interested in Hermetica may be referred to this text as the most recent and most thoroughly edited and translated; also to Thrice-Greatest Hermes, translated and edited by G. R. S. Mead (London, 1906).
2 Various studies have made clearer how much such blending entered into early Christianity. See, for example, V. Macchioro's From Orpheus to Paul (Holt, 1930), with its claim that Orphism definitely entered into Pauline theology, and by its mystic claims made ready the popular mind for Christianity.
3 The alchemist was not all trickster, of course. He helped pave the way for modern science and medicine. Alchemy definitely stimulated some earlier scientists, though it is impossible to separate it from other Platonic influences. William Gilbert, for example, writing in 1600 On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies, interpreted magnetism in terms of “soul” influences; and the origin of many magnetic studies must have been not far from Hermetic sources, even in terminology. On the other hand, it may well have been the unprincipled use of alchemy that threw discredit on such studies by the sixteenth century, even while Platonic science encouraged the mystic Hermetist in his studies.
4 Waite, A. E., Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London, 1888), p. 9. Waite is a special pleader for the theory that alchemy is in reality but “experimental mysticism.”
5 Ibid., p. 14.
6 Robert Sencourt, Outflying Philosophy (London, 1925), pp. 147–148.
7 The Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughan. Ed. by A. E. Waite (London, 1888), p. 5.
8 Ibid., pp. 18, 19.
9 Ibid., “Magica Adamica,” pp. 89–90.
10 Ibid., p. 90.
11 Ibid., p. 87.
12 Ibid., “Anima Magica Abscondita,” pp. 61–62.
13 Ibid., p. 70.
14 Ibid., p. 38.
15 Ibid., p. 33.
16 Readers interested in Agrippa may be referred to the study by Joseph Orsier, Henri Corneille Agrippa, sa Vie et ses œuvres (Paris, 1911), 2 vols;, as also to one by M. A. Prost (Paris, 1882), 2 vols. The article in the Algemeine Deutsche Biographie sums up his work.
17 Judson, A. C., “Cornelius Agrippa and Henry Vaughan,” MLN, xli, 178.
18 The Works of Henry Vaughan. Ed. by L. C. Martin (Oxford, 1914), ii, 549–550. The standard edition, used throughout this paper.
19 Ibid., ii, 561.
20 Ibid., ii, 672–673.
21 Ibid., ii, 548.—Cf. also note to “Of Life and Death,” i, 305, lines 19–25. Vide Waite, A. E., Hermetical and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus the Great (London, 1894).
22 Magical Writings, op. cit., “Coelum Terrae,” p. 143.
23 It might be of interest here to indicate what Hermetic literature might have been available for the Vaughans. Mead's Thrice-Greatest Hermes (op. cit., i, Introd.) lists a surprising number of editions in the general period. The first appearance of Hermetica was not a text but a translation into Latin by Ficinus in 1471, which went through 22 editions by 1641, 20 before 1600. A Greek edition appeared in Paris in 1554, and again with Latin translation (Bordeaux) in 1574. French editions appeared in 1557 and 1579. Latin editions appeared from Hamburg, 1593 and 1594, and from Cracow, 1585–90. An elaborate Latin edition came from Cologne in 1630, entitled Divinus Pimander Hermetis Mercurii Trismegisti. English editions were slower to appear, though one in Latin is listed for 1611. In 1650 came the translation of Dr. John Everard, entitled the Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, a translation from Ficinus, says Mead, though it purported to be from the Arabic. Everard's work must have appeared too late to have played a part in the major writings of the Vaughans (it was published the same year); but it seems to have been a favorite with English readers. Mead says it was “full of errors, mistranslations, and absurdities.” Rufus Jones, in Spiritual Reformers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1914), p. 243, mentions this work as one “which nearly all the spiritual Humanists ranked in the very first list of religious literature.”
24 Hutchinson, F. E., Cambridge History of Eng. Lit., vii, ii, 30–55.
25 Judson, A. C., “The Source of Henry Vaughan's Ideas Concerning God in Nature.” Stud. in Phil., xxiv, 592–606.
26 Dict. of Natl. Biog. (London, 1899), articles on the Vaughans.
27 Works of Henry Vaughan, op. cit., ii, 671.
28 Ibid., ii, 667.
29 Writings of Thomas Vaughan, op. cit., Introd. xii.
30 More, P. E., “Henry Vaughan,” Nation, cii, 247–48.
31 Judson, A. C., “The Source of Henry Vaughan's Ideas Concerning God in Nature,” Stud. in Phil., xxiv, 592–606.
32 All quotations are from the Martin edition, op. cit.
33 Ibid., ii, 583.
34 Magical Writings, op, cit., p. 9.
35 Ibid., pp. 72–73.
36 Ibid., p. 7.
37 Ibid., p. 35. Quoted also by Judson, loc. cit.
38 Ibid., “Coelum Terrae,” p. 129.
39 Blunden, Edmund, Poems of Vaughan (London, 1927), p. 14.
40 “Magical Writings,” op. cit., pp. 5, 9.
41 Works, op. cit., i, 169. From “Man in Darkness.”
42 Ibid., i, 282–284.—These quotations are scant evidence, it is true; yet they partly contradict the statement of one commentator that there is nothing in Henry Vaughan's prose to show any recognition of the idea.
43 Judson, op. cit., p. 605.
44 Blunden, op. cit., p. 17.
45 The writer makes no pretence of having read extensively in medieval Latin Hermetica. Neither talents nor interest would have sustained him through so arduous a task.
46 Works, op. cit., ii, 392.
47 Sencourt, op. cit., p. 158.